Pat Swearingen

San Antonio attorney and Charles Tips’ own lawyer; one of the founding investors who covered the $50,000 needed to build the factory in 1922, per Tips’ own 1973 prepared marker speech. Worth distinguishing clearly from William Church, the different San Antonio attorney whose later betrayal cost Tips the factory in 1936.

Named directly in Tips’ 1973 marker speech among the friends who “put in the balance” of the $50,000 startup capital [ev-0041]. The San Antonio Light of 1922-03-11 credits the charter to “P. H. Swearingen, company attorney.”

The second citizen of Three Rivers

Swearingen’s association with Tips long predates the glass company. Patrick Harry Swearingen — “known to everyone as Pat” — was the younger brother of Richard Swearingen, Tips’ closest friend and fraternity brother at the University of Texas. Fresh out of high school, Pat had worked construction on the Medina Dam, where “it did not take long for him to display his force of character and his ability. He was made a foreman and handled a large crew.”

Tips credits him with supervising the Mexican contract crews who grubbed out the streets of Three Rivers in 1913: “Pat moved into the tent with me and was, therefore, the second citizen in the new town.” After finishing law school and serving in the army, Swearingen joined Tips at the Dallas Joint Stock Land Bank as general attorney for South Texas — and by 1922 was the company attorney who secured the Three Rivers Glass charter and one of its investors.

See Also

• William Church — a different San Antonio attorney; not to be confused with Swearingen